translated by Thomas Teal
introduction by Ali Smith
Not much is going on in this short book (subtitled “a novel” but more like a short story collection), and at the same time a lot is going on. Mari and Jonna — quite obviously based on Jansson herself and her partner, Tuulikki Pietilä — are two artists in their seventies who live on a small island. Quite apart from their creative work, they are busy letting out, after all these years together, some things about their mothers (One Time in June, Fog) and fathers (Viktoria); getting jealous (Jonna’s Pupil, Stars); and starting new friendships (In The Great City of Phoenix). Wise, touching and at times hilarious. Love isn’t mentioned often but it’s there, all over the place.
The opening and closing chapters, Changing Pictures and The Letter, nicely bookend the collection; the rest could be (re)read in any order.
He leaped up and began striding back and forth across the room with long, almost dancing steps. “No, say nothing. What is it I have found? I have found a glass shard of what I call the Finnish legend, a shard of a clumsy fairy tale, and I have made this glass shard sparkle like a diamond! Is there any more tea?”
“Not at the moment,” Mari replied rather coldly.
“You should use a samovar.”
Mari filled the saucepan and turned on the hotplate. “It will take a while,” she said.
Wladyslaw said, “I don’t like your tone.”
“But you don’t have to get meals for her, I hope.”
“No, no, I told you. Just coffee.”
Once, when Mari went over to Jonna’s on the wrong day to borrow a pair of pliers, she walked right into a coffee break. There were two kinds of salad, Camembert, and small pasties. And the beef that Mari and Jonna were supposed to have the next day had been cut into elegant strips and decorated with parsley. On top of it all, Jonna had lit a candle on the table. They all had coffee. Demonstratively, Mari ate nothing.
Jonna said, “I’m not talking about your father. I’m talking about mine. He used to tell us about his trips. You never knew what he was making up and what really happened.”
“Even better,” Mari said.
“No, wait... They were awful, terrifying things, including storms, although he’d never been to sea.”
“But that can make them even better,” Mari said.
“You’re interrupting. And when he was talked out and didn’t know how to end it, he’d just say, ‘And then it started to rain and everyone went home.’”
“Excellent,” Mari said. “Wonderful. Endings can be really hard.”
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